Emilia Teasdale is reporting for The Columbia Paper four villages in Columbia County will hold elections on Tue., March 16. In Philmont and Valatie, the incumbent mayors are not seeking reelection. In Chatham and Kinderhook, incumbents are running unopposed. Voters have the option to write in a candidate generally open from noon to 9 p.m. In Chatham, incumbent mayor John Howe and trustees Jaimee Boehme and Peter Minahan are all running unopposed. Howe and Minahan are running on the Chatham Future Party line and Boehme is on the Village Peoples Party line. The mayor and the trustee positions are both two-year terms. The Village of Chatham elections are run by the Columbia County Board of Elections. Two trustee seats are open in the village of Kinderhook. Incumbents David Flaherty and James Mark Browne are each seeking reelection. Browne, who was appointed to the board after the September 2020 election, is running to serve a full two-year term. Long-time Philmont Mayor Clarence “Skip” Speed is not seeking reelection. Speed served as mayor for 16 years and as a village trustee before that. Current village board member Brian Johnson, is running for mayor on the Village Party line. If Johnson wins, he will appoint someone to take his place on the board; if a write-in candidate wins, Johnson will retain his current seat. Philmont also has two open seats for trustee. Incumbents Douglas Cropper and Larry Ostrander, with the Village Party and Jason Detzel, with the Homestead Party, are running for two open trustee seats. In Valatie, incumbent Trustee Frank Bevens is running unopposed for mayor. Incumbent trustee Larry Eleby, Sr. and newcomer Sean Casey are running unopposed. Incumbent mayor Diane Argyle is not seeking reelection. She has served as village mayor since 2013. Read more in The Columbia Paper.